In order to protect confidential information or personal information in information terminals such as personal computers (hereinafter called PCs) connectable to a network, it is important to grasp/manage security information including the versions and management levels of an OS and applications applied to each of the information terminals, and the like. The importance is particularly high in a network within a secured site.
Under the conventional technology, an information terminal having confidential information or personal information uses a firewall to prevent unauthorized access from outside or individually applies a patch delivered to an OS to provide protection.
However, when one person manages two or more information terminals or when two or more users share one information terminal, it is difficult to keep the versions and management levels of the OS and applications on each of the information terminals always up-to-date. In other words, since the management of the information terminals and the management of versions are often left to each individual administrator, the vulnerability may not be actually fixed even if the administrator believes them to be up-to-date, or the antivirus level may be low. Thus, there is a limit to what each individual administrator can do to maintain and manage the security level of each information terminal.
Japanese Patent No. 5323873 and Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-99306 are hereby incorporated by reference.